Insurers Are Spying on Your Home From the Sky (wsj.com) 104
Across the U.S., insurance companies are using aerial images of homes as a tool to ditch properties seen as higher risk [non-paywalled link]. From a report: Nearly every building in the country is being photographed, often without the owner's knowledge. Companies are deploying drones, manned airplanes and high-altitude balloons to take images of properties. No place is shielded: The industry-funded Geospatial Insurance Consortium has an airplane imagery program it says covers 99% of the U.S. population. The array of photos is being sorted by computer models to spy out underwriting no-nos, such as damaged roof shingles, yard debris, overhanging tree branches and undeclared swimming pools or trampolines. The red-flagged images are providing insurers with ammunition for nonrenewal notices nationwide.
"spying" (Score:5, Insightful)
They're looking at the properties that they're insuring. Seems reasonable.
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While 4th amendment protections don't hold for this (insurance ISN'T the government), unlawful access protections do.
They're gonna get their asses handed to them over this... At which time they'll pull the "we won't insure anyone" play.
It's time to reign in the institutional bookie joint6s WAY in. They're also the cause of the health care cost issues in the US.
Re:"spying" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"spying" (Score:5, Funny)
If they discover a broken roof tile, and you're covered... doesn't that mean they'll write the check?
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Maybe it's different in the US, but in the UK a broken roof tile being covered depends on how it broke. If there was an extreme weather event then they might pay out, but if it was just wear and tear they won't. Insurance doesn't cover normal maintenance costs.
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Re:"spying" (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't fret too much. The slow death of insurance in general is in progress.
I am curious why you think that this won't survive an "unlawful access" protection challenge. I can take a picture of a property from the street - I'm not sure why taking one from the sky is different enough to successfully put through the courts.
As for health care costs... I suppose you can blame insurers for part of it, but it's the whole US system that's to blame, top to bottom. You've got a confusing mix of both "not for" and "for" profit hospitals, a litigation-happy populace and lawyer base, and a whole chunk of government devoted to maintaining the cash flows that make the whole thing the least effective and most costly system in the developed world.
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You can blame insurers for most [youtube.com], if not all, of it.
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Well, if they overfly your home with a drone and you can somehow prove it, you might be able to get them into some trouble; since the law treats "drones" differently from plain old RC aircraft because they're all newfangled and the word invokes images of hellfire missiles raining down from the sky in the minds of the clueless. But good luck proving it. And if the pictures came from a real aircraft operating at a proper altitude, you're SOL.
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Every municipality in the country pays to have their residents overflown a couple times a year for imagery, GIS and mapping purposes. That current imagery is in a neat Google Maps-like interface available to the police (SWAT specifically), Planning and Zoning, permitting departments, etc. In other words what you are complaining about is already being done and has been for many years by contractors like Pictometry, etc.
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> a litigation-happy populace
Companies often do stupid shit, I've seen it multiple times. They often are not innocent victims.
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I can take a picture of a property from the street - I'm not sure why taking one from the sky is different enough to successfully put through the courts
Well, for one, taking imagery of a place from a public vantage, you aren't trespassing. A certain amount of sky above a property is considered part of that property, of course, to a certain point, which is trespassing. Anything above that, you have to deal with the FAA
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Become more aware: "In Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, the freedom to roam takes the form of general public rights which are sometimes codified in law."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Not sure about 'general wandering', but there are a LOT of places where, for example, the beaches cannot be owned - all beaches are public land. You cannot fence them in, block access to them, or prevent anyone at all from accessing them.
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I am curious why you think that this won't survive an "unlawful access" protection challenge. I can take a picture of a property from the street - I'm not sure why taking one from the sky is different enough to successfully put through the courts.
In the USA, the law is specific. Anything which can be observed from a publicly accessible place during the course of normal and customary activity is NOT PRIVATE. But if I have taken reasonable precautions to protect my privacy (closing curtains, putting up a fence, etc) then any attempts to circumvent those protections are a deliberate invasion of privacy.
If you can see it while walking/driving down the street that is not an invasion of privacy. If you peer thru my curtains to watch me undress, that is
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You know... Draft Kings keeps getting its slogan captioned "Make it RAIN" not "Make it REIGN"..
Re:"spying" (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with health care insurance vs say fire insurance is that while in both cases you normally don't need to exercise it, in the case of health care, when you do need it, you typically need a lot of it, for long periods of time. This is very different than property insurance where it may pay out from time to time to cover storms, etc, or a big payment of the value of the home when a home is destroyed. At the latter case, the insurance policy is generally done; the building the insurance covered is now gone. If you get cancer, insurance starts paying large amounts and that will continue over long periods of time, perhaps until you eventually die. Even the normal aging process guarantees you'll need more health insurance payouts as you age. Another difference is that if property insurance is too expensive, you can always sell and move to a better, more insurable place. Can't do that with your body, although people try.
I have no problem with the idea of insurance in general. It's a brilliant solution to a costly problem. I do have issue with the fact that a large, for-profit industry has arisen around it.
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While 4th amendment protections don't hold for this (insurance ISN'T the government), unlawful access protections do. They're gonna get their asses handed to them over this...
Have they sued google maps yet? Yes/No.
I can get a pretty good image of my house just looking on the web. More than good enough to tell if I have an undeclared trampoline or a swimming pool. To look for damaged shingles, I have to go to google streetview.
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I worked for a government agency that wanted better imagery than Google supplied. It's not difficult to get a commercial photo survey, packaged up nicely for easy import into your GIS database.
We chose late fall, to avoid leaves hiding things from us.
The privacy battle is lost, nobody listened to the 'paranoid privacy nuts' until well after it was too late, and even now few people care until personally affected.
Re: "spying" (Score:2)
The Ordnance Survey photo surveyed Great Britain back in the 1950s. Similar photo surveys of the USA where done even earlier. The privacy "battle" was lost before anyone knew it had taken place.
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It's true... aircraft (air lines) do fly above your property and can do so with impunity. Long settled law ( See current SCOTUS ). BUT it's not done with the intent to observe your property ( intent counts in the law ).
That intent makes it unlawful access.
And the lawyers are gonna get paid.
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I think the current rash of insurance cancellations is mainly due to price controls. People seem to have a very confused relationship with insurance, and also government services, that they over time you should receive as much or more back than you paid into them. That is wrong. On average, you lose money on an insurance policy. They payoff is a small chance of reaping a huge "profit" if yo
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This is why Ned Flanders shuns insurance as gambling
Great reference and really a lesson of why insurance is in fact valuable as that episode wouldn't have any conflict if Ned did just have a standard policy which would have covered a freak occurrence of a hurricane blowing your entire house down which is the exact scenario your average person cannot self-insure for.
Of course then Ned would not have had his chance to solve his repressed anger issues but that plot point was abandoned pretty quickly in the show.
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This is why Ned Flanders shuns insurance as gambling
Great reference and really a lesson of why insurance is in fact valuable as that episode wouldn't have any conflict if Ned did just have a standard policy which would have covered a freak occurrence of a hurricane blowing your entire house down which is the exact scenario your average person cannot self-insure for.
Of course then Ned would not have had his chance to solve his repressed anger issues but that plot point was abandoned pretty quickly in the show.
Also, Ned's house was completely back to normal in the next episode. Real life of course doesn't work that way.
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Ahh, yeah, whenever you notice something like that... a wizard did it.
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This is just a drive-by from above.
This is about privacy. I can be reasonably assured, due to laws put in place, that when I'm laying in my fenced-in backyard bare-assed that I won't be photographed. It's not OK for my neighbor to fly his drone over my property to evade my privacy fence. Why is it OK for State Farm to do it?
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This is just a drive-by from above.
This is about privacy. I can be reasonably assured, due to laws put in place, that when I'm laying in my fenced-in backyard bare-assed that I won't be photographed. It's not OK for my neighbor to fly his drone over my property to evade my privacy fence. Why is it OK for State Farm to do it?
I don't know the exact details of the laws related to flying drones over properties but...
if the drone or low-flying aircraft or balloon is higher than the "privacy altitude" (I have heard that might be 400 feet), AND, that flying object does not violate any FAA or other government regulations, then whatever it sees is fair game and it's actions are legal.
In some jurisdictions the fence around your property is limited to a certain height. In my area that is 8 feet.
And then again I know some /-dotter will as
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if the drone or low-flying aircraft or balloon is higher than the "privacy altitude"...then whatever it sees is fair game and it's actions are legal.
I would concur with your assessment. I used to know what the altitude limitation was, but your number seems to be within the cor
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I don't consider this bad. I have my neighbor fly his drone over my house at the start of every hurricane season to record that there's no d
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Is that a reasonable assumption? Light aircraft have been around for over a century, often low flying. News crews in helicopters filming car chases. And yes, now drones as well. Your neighbour might want to inspect their roof with one. Or go up there themselves to do it.
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Ah, well it depends what you want. If you just don't want people to see you naked, it's not a good idea. If you just want to absolve yourself of legal liability, you are probably fine. Obviously make sure there aren't any overlooking windows from neighbours or anything.
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Hmm-- "spying" seems to be a loaded word.
They're looking at the properties that they're insuring. Seems reasonable.
So as a taxpayer, I should set up NSA-grade surveillance at my local Representatives house? Given the insurance rates that amount to theft they’re getting kickbacks on, seems reasonable.
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can an bank take back an home on loan if it ends (Score:2)
can an bank take back an home on loan if it ends up on the nonrenewal list?
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No, but what they CAN do is insure it themselves and charge the home owner for the costs.
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about 10x the cost as a penalty and only for their loss of structure, no liability or other property damage.
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If you have a loan that includes terms requiring you to have HOI, and you don't have HOI, then you are in default on that loan. What happens when you default on the loan? The usual stuff....
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Happened to me (Score:5, Interesting)
This year's renewal of home insurance cam with all kinds of new stipulations.
One was satellite photos from Google Earth with areas of my roof circled where they suspected some damage. I was able to have a conversation with my agent and the underwriter and tell them when we last replaced the roof, and assured them that we had been on the roof recently (Christmas lights) and got them to back off. It sounded like they were using some machine analysis looking for odd stain patterns.
My take is that the industry as a whole is trying to improve the quality of their assessments and risk exposure.
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Are you being compensated for being in that antenna's fall zone?
What's weird... (Score:1)
Eventually insurance companies will only offer insurance to those who aren't likely to need it at all.
And if you don't need it, why buy it?
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Because it'll be mandatory to have a mortgage, and neighbors if you want em. I want neither.
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yard debris? (Score:1)
I already had a garage fire, because I don't blow the leaves all over the street like most neighbors do. I should get one of them electric leaf blowers. It'd be easier to dust the house with one of them things too.
Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
The red-flagged images are providing insurers with ammunition for nonrenewal notices nationwide.
That seems a bit honest, surely they would use this info as an excuse to not pay out, but still collect the premiums beforehand?
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They want to reduce risk in general. An unkept yard doesn't make grounds for denial of claim, but it increases chances of one... at least in theory.
I am sure things like unpermitted solar falls in there as well.
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Insurers now big enough to need no customers (Score:3, Interesting)
They already have their hundreds of trillions of dollars. They already own 80% of the world. They don't need customers. This is just part of that process. Each company will have one token customer, but other than that, they're able to grow exponentially without any customers.
It's not spying (Score:1)
It's only spying if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and in the case of the view of your home from the outside, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Any place outside your home that is visible from a place that someone can lawfully be, is not protected by a reasonable expectation of privacy. A place that someone can lawfully be is in the airspace above and around your home, subject to FAA regulations for drone flights.
If you don't want to get dropped because you have an undeclared
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The companies are VERY interested in dropping people, just like they used to be in the
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gnores the reality that insurance is supposed to cover not just all perfect homes/people but those with interesting things, minor deficiencies, things that are hard to explain, etc. to make an interesting & functional neighborhood.
Umm no not at all. Insurance is suppose to provide a shared risk pool to people who want to buy into. Its a supposed to be a risk mitigation strategy for people who want it and are willing to pay.
More to the point your mass market insurers State Farm, etc are about having very uniform risk pools. Its an efficiently there are lots of smaller outfits that specialize in underwriting and insuring the usual and some very large ones too like Lloyds. The fact Progressive, State Farm, or the Local Farm Bureau don
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No I am talking what insurance is or historically was; you are trying to make it into something else which it is not.
I don't really buy into your arguments about communities either. People who live in the burps as rule do not want to live near anything 'unexplainable' if they did they'd live somewhere else; in some down town historic area or out in the country side. Good grief look how cookie cutter the typical HOA requires things to be!
Meanwhile out in the sticks everyone is used to shopping for insurance
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Notice something? (Score:5, Insightful)
The FAA will not let YOU buy a cheap drone and fly it over your house to take pictures unless you equip it with a new transponder, which you probably cannot find and/or afford (the regulations mandated something that did not exist at the time, and for which there was no complete spec or FCC approval plan). The transponder has no safety function - it does NOT broadcast as part of the ADSB system, so it does NOT make your drone visible to air traffic control or to pilots of planes (it's for the local police to be able to find you and stop you). If YOU have such a transponder, YOU still could not legally take pictures from that drone and sell them to anybody without getting a permit from the FAA (that sale of pics is a commercial act, and thus the FAA wants it's piece of the action). Also, YOU cannot get in a private plane (assuming you have a private pilot license and plane) and fly over the city and take photos of your neighbor's homes and sell them the photos (you'd need a much more expensive and harder to get (and maintain) commercial license) but the government is fine with some company making money flying planes or drones over your home and photographing it as they conspire with another company to take away your home insurance. Amazon and Pizza Hut etc will have no problem operating drones over your home (THEY, as mega-corps will be able to get and afford (or just make themselves) all the required transponders and pay for any permits etc). YOU as a citizen are slowly seeing your rights to the air over your property get stolen and transferred to government and industry - our founders PRESUMED that a citizen owned the air over his land and would be completely stunned by any other assertion.
I know, somebody will defend this saying "it's apples and oranges" and "the commercial operator DOES have a commercial license" etc. I agree, but that's NOT my point. There's nothing inherently more dangerous in YOU flying a drone over your own home and taking pics, or in YOU flying a cessna over your home while your buddy in the right seat snaps a few pics of your home and your neighbors' homes - and certainly none of these becomes more dangerous if you later sell the photos. This is about regulatory capture (Government making extra costs raise the bar to entry into an activity, which in-turn benefits some businesses or business models or industries) and the reduction of freedom for the individual. It's also about government and corporations working hand-in-glove to ramp-up the control they have over the general population (who are SUPPOSED to be the ones in control in a Constitutional Republic).
"Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" - Elizabeth Willing Powel, to Benjamin Franklin, September 17, 1787
“A republic, if you can keep it.” - Benjamin Franklin
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the reduction of freedom for the individual. It's also about government and corporations working hand-in-glove to ramp-up the control they have over the general population
I mean this may not be wrong but to me a far simpler explanation for a lot of these things is just the imperfect nature of regulation and the reasons these regulations have to come up to begin with.
Just a few years ago the whole drone thing was wide open in terms of regulation and for a small time that was fine since it was a fairly new and enthusiast market. Over time however as people tend to do the bad apples ruined it for everybody.
People flying drones over their neighbors private property, people cras
Re:Notice something? (Score:4, Informative)
The FAA will not let YOU buy a cheap drone and fly it over your house to take pictures unless you equip it with a new transponder, which you probably cannot find and/or afford
To the contrary. The FAA will not let you buy an EXPENSIVE drone and fly it over your house to take pictures.
If it weighs less than 250 grams (0.55 pounds), and the cheap ones do, you can fly it under the "Exception for Limited Recreational Operations".
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The purpose of drone transponders is so your drone is visible to other drones.
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Also, YOU cannot get in a private plane (assuming you have a private pilot license and plane) and fly over the city and take photos of your neighbor's homes and sell them the photos (you'd need a much more expensive and harder to get (and maintain) commercial license) but the government is fine with some company making money flying planes or drones over your home and photographing it as they conspire with another company to take away your home insurance.
That's is not quite correct.
Anyone with a Private pilot license is allowed to fly over your house (or anywhere else it's legal to fly) and can take pictures. If such a pilot were to sell those photos, the FAA doesn't care, unless the original intent of the flight was to do what ultimately was commercial activity. If the FAA finds out that you are doing that kind of thing a lot, or if you are "holding forth" as a service, you will get in trouble for not having the appropriate licenses.
A good non-grey example
Nope. See FAA regs, part61 (Score:2)
Private and recreational pilots are prohibited from making money from their flying. Passengers can pay THEIR SHARE of the costs of a flight, but not more (i.e. the pilot cannot gain financially from the flight if he does not hold a commercial license). The FAA has revoked the licenses of YouTubers (NOT just the moron who deliberately crashed his plane) after they ran channels in which they MONETIZED (or the FAA believed they'd monetized) their flying videos while not holding a commercial license. The smarte
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The FAA has revoked the licenses of YouTubers (NOT just the moron who deliberately crashed his plane) after they ran channels in which they MONETIZED (or the FAA believed they'd monetized) their flying videos while not holding a commercial license.
Citation needed, as the FAA has written numerous opinions to the contrary. However, if you are operating a YouTube channel whose content is you purposely initiating flights for the intended purpose of creating content for your monetized channel, they may take a dum view. But just posting your videos of flights you were taking anyway? Show me the court case, please.
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hey may take a dum view. But just posting your videos of flights you were taking anyway? Show me the court case, please.
LOL "dum" view was supposed to be "dim" view.
Whether it's dumb or not, I dunno.
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You clearly know nothing about the FAA. Yeah the FAA will let you fly a private plane how you like providing your flightpath is approved, and for that these companies need to do exactly the same time.
The government isn't doing anything here. Insurers / imaging services (since insurers simply buy the images from private companies) aren't magically exempt from FAA rules that aren't accessible to you as a private person too.
The real question is those satellites, does your tin foil hat protect against them?
More than you, apparently (Score:2)
I work in the aerospace sector, and am directly regulated by the FAA and routinely sign documents they review. They have my signature on file and compare it when reviewing docs I sign off on. I have been in this stuff for a whole bunch of years. I own an airplane, but do not hold a current license to fly (the plane's currently not airworthy but I hope to restore it to that status at some point).
I think, perhaps, you did not read my post closely enough, you got over-excited and only skimmed, or perhaps you s
Not really anything new (Score:4, Informative)
So? I have a 1980s aerial photo-painting. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I have a picture of what was the family farm from the early 1960's from the same deal. The pilot took pictures of the farms in then went door to door selling the pictures. To get the whole house-garage-machine shed-barn in the picture he had to be pretty high up, so no real privacy intrusion.
Climate change mitigation? (Score:2)
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Do insurance companies foresee substantial claims due to extreme weather conditions eating into their profit margins? Perhaps they're looking for excuses to ditch some liabilities?
Or more accurately they are improving their risk models. Tell me: Would you voluntarily forgo the collecting and using of information that lowers the chance you'll loose money?
Don't have a problem with this... (Score:1)
In order for insurance to be effective, you have to have a reasonable understanding of risk. Better to evaluate this by sky-drone vs. having to send out people to inspect properties for these issues.
Does anyone really consider this a violation of privacy when you are simultaneously expect them to cover any insurance-related claim without any oversight? Sounds like the 'entitled generation' to me...
In any case, getting people in compliance by declaring dangerous things like trampolines or swimming pools wi
The dice are loaded (Score:2)
The problem with this is it's one sided.
They're up there looking for any excuse to increase your rates or drop you completely.
No matter what they find, they will never voluntarily LOWER your rates even if updates you've made would warrant such a thing.
In France... (Score:2)
The government tax agency uses satellite photos to find which houses have swimming-pools and check if they are declared on the real-estate tax report.
nonrenewal notices will not be sent (Score:2)
"The red-flagged images are providing insurers with ammunition for nonrenewal notices nationwide."
Nope, most will not send out non-renewal notices at first. They will continue to collect the payments and if there is a claim, deny it. Then there will be a nonrenewal notice.
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There is a principle in law that if you knew about a risk and did nothing to mitigate it...
It doesn't really matter (Score:2)